OMG Omicron

[chiller99]

I am very sorry to hear about this. While this has been challenging for almost everyone, very few can claim anywhere near the struggles you have clearly had to endure. I hope you recover both quickly and with as little discomfort as possible.

\\

Thanks for the kind words and well wishes, currently searching for a trial of anything experimental that may help prolong my survival, stage 4 closes in fast on anyone and I hope everyone stays healthy during this pandemic

[MightyGiants]

This has been so trying personally with losing almost 3 years of time being locked down due to lack of immunity. Its both physically and mentally trying in being safe during these extensive outbreaks and being a chemo patient has me suffering more than I can put into words.

I am truly sorry to hear that you have to undergo Chemo.  I wish you the best of luck and a speedy recovery.   It's always unfortunate to have to undergo Chemo, and I can't think of a worse time to have to do that, than during this Covid crisis.   

[Ed Vette]

This has been so trying personally with losing almost 3 years of time being locked down due to lack of immunity. Its both physically and mentally trying in being safe during these extensive outbreaks and being a chemo patient has me suffering more than I can put into words.

Godspeed.

[Ed Vette]

It's been two years that we've been living with the COVID virus. There had been number of articles/studies on the subjects, some of them turned out to be false later. Add to this that both administrations had stumbled during this Pandemic, then it becomes increasingly hard for one to follow the right pass for protection.

My state, CT, keeps track of all COVID variant infections. Based on these statistics, there had been huge jump in the number of breakthrough infection and the resulting death. Here are the highlights breakthrough cases from the 12.02.21 and 01.06.22 reports:

Breakthrough infections:
   December 02, 21: 25.174
   January 06, 22: 83,147
   Increase: 57,973

Compared to being vaccinated, being unvaccinated posed 5 times higher risk of being infected with COVID, than vaccinated; this risk dropped to 3 times likely in January.

Breakthrough death:
   December 02, 2021: 205
   January 02, 2022: 311
   Increase: 106

The Omicron variant certainly plays a role in the increased numbers, since the report from December shows 0.0%. In the January report Omicron is 3.6% of all COVID infection. The Delta variant increased from 55.9% to 62.8% during the same period. The overall percentage of fully vaccinated people hospitalized with COVID has also risen to 32 percent, from about 20 percent from early last week. That's roughly 1/3 of the hospitalized is fully vaccinated.

In my view, these numbers are due to the increased number of vaccinated and the dwindling number of unvaccinated population. Presumably, the breakthrough infection numbers will continue to increase in the future, as the number of unvaccinated infection continue to drop. Unless a new, more efficient vaccine shows up sometimes in the near future, we will just have to learn how to live with the COVID virus hanging around. If this virus didn't disappear after two years, it's unlikely to do so anytime soon...

Vaccinated/Boosted may take greater precautions overall with mask wearing and social distancing. Being more cautious personalities. Just a thought. Or, this may be evidence that they are just less likely to contract it due to immunity to viral load.

[Bob In PA]

Vaccinated/Boosted may take greater precautions overall with mask wearing and social distancing. Being more cautious personalities. Just a thought. Or, this may be evidence that they are just less likely to contract it due to immunity to viral load.

Ed: The mask question is super-complicated.  But there's no doubt masks help avoid transmitting the disease to others.  That's their strong point in my opinion, and it's simple and easy-to-understand.

That's why (1) I don't mind wearing a mask if required (or requested politely) to do so; and (2) IMO this point should be emphasized by anyone who wishes to support and promote mask-wearing.

Does a mask protect you? Depends on the mask. Even with the "right" mask, you still must wear it correctly, replace it with a new one fairly often, don't touch anything but the line that goes around your ear, etc.

Bob

[Blue4Life]

Vaccinated/Boosted may take greater precautions overall with mask wearing and social distancing. Being more cautious personalities. Just a thought. Or, this may be evidence that they are just less likely to contract it due to immunity to viral load.

Actually, the fully vaccinated/boosted tend to be less cautious overall, trusting that the vaccine will protect them. Even, if one of these people are cautious, it's not a guarantee that they cannot get infected. Anecdotally...

We had my daughter (Perimedic, ALS) and my grandkids over for dinner on Xmas-eve. Next day, she called us to tell that she has a positive COVID test; after five days she was back at work. Neither my grandkids, single vaccine shot, nor us with boosters had became infected. They were just over for dinner last night. The family, that lives across from my house one by one had became infected around Xmas, one of their young kids brought it home from school, all of them are vaccinated. One the other hand, friend of mine opted out from vaccination and he's just fine. Albeit due to the 33% infection rate in our town, he'll probably get vaccinated now. Again, this is just my personal experience with infections around me...

As stated earlier, there will be a point in the future, where the number of breakthrough infection will be grater than the number of unvaccinated infection, both percentage and actual number wise. This is due to that there will be less and less people will be unvaccinated, like my friend in couple of days.

Ed: The mask question is super-complicated.  But there's no doubt masks help avoid transmitting the disease to others.  That's their strong point in my opinion, and it's simple and easy-to-understand.

That's why (1) I don't mind wearing a mask if required (or requested politely) to do so; and (2) IMO this point should be emphasized by anyone who wishes to support and promote mask-wearing.

Does a mask protect you? Depends on the mask. Even with the "right" mask, you still must wear it correctly, replace it with a new one fairly often, don't touch anything but the line that goes around your ear, etc.

Bob

At the beginning of the pandemic, the advicse had been that "My mask protects you, Your mask protects me" is still holds true...

[MightyGiants]

When it comes to Covid, we have an ever-changing picture due to the fact that we have been learning all along as well as 3 different variants

The original-  The vaccine works extremely well against it both for infection and illness.  It was contagious but not highly contagious

Delta-  This variation impacted the vaccine to some degree when it came to getting infected.  The vaccine still worked well against serious illness and death.  This variation was more contagious than the original.  It was about as deadly as the original perhaps more so (but offset with improved treatment from trial and error and new drugs)

Omicron-  This variant is much more contagious among the vaccinated.   Among the unvaccinated, it's about as contagious as Delta.   The one plus is it seems to be milder than the original or Delta strains.   The vaccine does still seem to import protection from serious illness and death especially among the boosted.  The booster is a must for Omicron and it's not unfair to say if you're not boosted your not vaccinated when it comes to Omicron.   Although again even boosted it seems to cut your risk of infection by about half (which is not all that great when you consider it's pretty much everywhere).

Now when it comes to protective measures, I think each needs to be considered in a risk/cost  VS reward/benefit     Using a 1-10 scale where 1 is no cost/risk and 10 massive cost/risk and for benefit 1 is no benefit and 10 means things couldn't be better here is how I would rate the various measures


Masks   Costs/risk-  2 (maybe 3 for KN95    Reward  8 (for KN95 or better)  6 (surgical)  4 simple cloth    NOTE- KN95 slightly harder to breath in

Vaccine  Costs/risk- 3 (mostly short-term)    Reward  6   or 8 if boosted

Soical distancing  Cost/risk  4  Reward  7

Shutting down or avoiding risky activities  Cost  varies from 4 to 8 (depends on activity)   Reward   4 to 8 (depends on activity)

Healthy Lifestyle and weight loss-   Cost 3    Reward  9  (some of that reward is not Covid related)


In the end I suggest protection in layers with the more layers the better

In terms of any given activity choice I suggest considering the risk VS the reward

[DaveBrown74]

I would respectfully disagree that masks are only a 2 cost. I think that would be a fair rating if we were only accounting for physical comfort considerations, but the cost extends to social considerations as well. There is no question (and I don't need an official study to believe this) that masks inhibit human communication to some degree. Facial expressions, changes in facial expressions mid-sentence, etc absolutely matter. So when human beings do not communicate as well as they otherwise would, I believe costs come with that, and they are not negligible.

I think the "cost" of wearing a mask to say a supermarket or doctors' office is at most a 2, and probably more like a 1 or 0.5. That really doesn't bother me at all. If however I were a kid trying to make friends at a new school that had a strict "masks on at all times policy", I think the cost would be worse than a 2, and that is just one example.

[MightyGiants]

I would respectfully disagree that masks are only a 2 cost. I think that would be a fair rating if we were only accounting for physical comfort considerations, but the cost extends to social considerations as well. There is no question (and I don't need an official study to believe this) that masks inhibit human communication to some degree. Facial expressions, changes in facial expressions mid-sentence, etc absolutely matter. So when human beings do not communicate as well as they otherwise would, I believe costs come with that, and they are not negligible.

I think the "cost" of wearing a mask to say a supermarket or doctors' office is at most a 2, and probably more like a 1 or 0.5. That really doesn't bother me at all. If however I were a kid trying to make friends at a new school that had a strict "masks on at all times policy", I think the cost would be worse than a 2, and that is just one example.

One thing I have noticed is that kids do more communication via text and social media than they do face to face.   Still, beyond that, it seems to me, that much of what you cite is more speculative or intuitive rather than factual.    I do keep an open mind though, so if you have a peer review studied (or a pre-review that sounds like it's quality) I would be willing to listen in terms of the detriment of masks for kids.    I will qualify that any study will be scrutinized because we both know that people have made the masks in school a political issue and when it comes to politics misinformation is way too common.

[DaveBrown74]

One thing I have noticed is that kids do more communication via text and social media than they do face to face.   Still, beyond that, it seems to me, that much of what you cite is more speculative or intuitive rather than factual.    I do keep an open mind though, so if you have a peer review studied (or a pre-review that sounds like it's quality) I would be willing to listen in terms of the detriment of masks for kids.    I will qualify that any study will be scrutinized because we both know that people have made the masks in school a political issue and when it comes to politics misinformation is way too common.

That's true that masks in school (and masks in general for that matter) have been highly politicized. To be perfectly frank, I'm not even saying they definitely should be eliminated in schools. I'm merely disputing the notion that there is zero cost (or a very negligible one) associated with students having to have them on all the time. It may well still be the right thing to do given all considerations. Having said that, at the very least, I feel policy makers should be very dynamic around this issue and consider cost/benefits analysis at every turn. Just having an indefinite, blanket policy that masks need to be on at all times moving forward, no questions asked, is not one that I am supportive of.

[chiller99]

When all is said and done I truly wish people would follow one simple rule and wear their masks properly.  We all are aware health care pros wear the properly fitted N95 masks but the public could at least go through the motions and cover the nose and mouth areas to protect themselves as well as others with challenged immunity

[LennG]

How much do we know about Omicron as far as it relates to the original virus as to how to protect oneself like towards shopping. We learned that we should wash our veggies, wipe down our packages, even change clothes if we went out to the store. We learned how long the virus lived on certain materials, like plastics and cardboard among other things and we adjusted our lives accordingly.
With Omicron, are these same procedures necessary? Do we know if this variant lives on a cardboard box, on the mail, on our daily paper? Are we still washing our food brought into the house, wiping down the milk cartons?
My darling wife still does it all and I chide her a bit for it, but is she being overly cautious or doing the right thing?

[Ed Vette]

Lenn, the world was much more cautious when the virus first raged upon the scene. 

[MightyGiants]

How much do we know about Omicron as far as it relates to the original virus as to how to protect oneself like towards shopping. We learned that we should wash our veggies, wipe down our packages, even change clothes if we went out to the store. We learned how long the virus lived on certain materials, like plastics and cardboard among other things and we adjusted our lives accordingly.
With Omicron, are these same procedures necessary? Do we know if this variant lives on a cardboard box, on the mail, on our daily paper? Are we still washing our food brought into the house, wiping down the milk cartons?
My darling wife still does it all and I chide her a bit for it, but is she being overly cautious or doing the right thing?

Fomite (or disease transfer from a common surface) was discounted some time ago as a significant source of the spread of the Coronavirus (I appreciate that early on everyone was taking precautions against fomite transfer because we didn't know).     I have seen nothing that suggests that Omicron behaves differently.   That said, it's still a good idea to practice general good hygiene in terms of frequent hand washing, avoiding touching eyes, nose, and ears, and keeping cleaning surfaces regularly.     However, there is no reason to take the extreme measures we saw early on.

[Bob In PA]

Fomite (or disease transfer from a common surface) was discounted some time ago as a significant source of the spread of the Coronavirus (I appreciate that early on everyone was taking precautions against fomite transfer because we didn't know).     I have seen nothing that suggests that Omicron behaves differently.   That said, it's still a good idea to practice general good hygiene in terms of frequent hand washing, avoiding touching eyes, nose, and ears, and keeping cleaning surfaces regularly.     However, there is no reason to take the extreme measures we saw early on.

Rich: Yes, you can still get one of the flu viruses not covered by this year's installment of the flu shot, so that's yet another reason to keep in mind.  Bob